(1607–1776), are shown in red on the East Coast. When the
Kingdom of England began its efforts to cross the
Atlantic Ocean and settle in eastern
North America in the late
16th century, it ignored the
Kingdom of Spain's long-asserted claim of
sovereignty over the entire continent as part of its world-wide
Spanish Empire. Spain's similar claim to all of
South America had been refuted when the Pope
Alexander VI had divided the twin continents of the
Americas between Spain and the
Kingdom of Portugal in the 1494
Treaty of Tordesillas. Spain's area of settlement was limited to only the very southern and southwestern parts and coastal edges of the continent of North America, however, and it had little ability to enforce its sovereignty. Disregarding, as did Spain, the sovereignty of the indigenous nations, England claimed the entire
North America continent at this point (though its western, northern, and southern boundaries were ill-defined, vague, and not yet clear), which it named
Virginia in honour of the virgin queen,
Elizabeth I. England's first successful settlement in North America was
Jamestown, established by the
Virginia Company of London in 1607, with the second being the Atlantic Ocean archipelago of
Bermuda (or the
Somers Isles), added to the territory of the same company in 1612 (the company having been in occupation of the archipelago since the 1609 wreck there of its flagship, the
Sea Venture). Two areas of settlement in North America had been laid out in 1606, with the name
Virginia coming to connote the southern area, between Latitude 34° and Latitude 41° North, administered by the Virginia Company of London. The short form of that company's name was the
London Company, but it came to be known popularly as the
Virginia Company. The northern area of settlement, which extended to 45° North (an area that would come to be known as
New England), was to be administered and settled by the
Virginia Company of Plymouth (or Plymouth Company), which established the
Popham Colony in what is now
Maine in 1606, but this was quickly abandoned and Plymouth Company's territory was absorbed into the London Company's. Over the course of the
17th century,
Virginia would come to refer only to the
polity that is today the
Commonwealth of Virginia on the
East Coast of the
United States of America, with later areas of settlement on the continent considered separate colonies under their own local administrations and all collectively designated as
America (less often as
North America). The
Kingdom of England (including the adjacent Principality of
Wales) and the
Kingdom of Scotland remained separate nations until their 1707 unification to form the
Kingdom of Great Britain (1707–1801).
Scotland's attempts to establish its own colonies in North America and Central America before 1707 had been short-lived, but England brought substantial trans-Atlantic possessions into the new union when English America became
British America. In 1775, on the eve of the
American Revolution and parallel.
American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). British America included territories in the Western Hemisphere northeast of
New Spain, apart from the islands and claims of the
British West Indies in the larger
West Indies islands chain in the
Caribbean Sea, near the
Gulf of Mexico. These were: •
Bermuda •
British Arctic Territories •
The Floridas (
East and
West Florida, administered separately) •
Indian Reserve •
Newfoundland •
North-Western Territory •
Nova Scotia •
Quebec •
Rupert's Land (the territory of the
Hudson's Bay Company) •
St. John's Island (later
Prince Edward Island) •
Thirteen Colonies (each one administered separately, soon to become the United States): •
Connecticut Colony •
Delaware Colony •
Province of Georgia •
Province of Maryland •
Province of Massachusetts Bay •
Province of New Hampshire •
Province of New Jersey •
Province of New York •
Province of North Carolina •
Province of Pennsylvania •
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations •
Province of South Carolina •
Colony of Virginia Bermuda The Somers Isles, or
Bermuda, had been occupied by the
Virginia Company since its flagship, the
Sea Venture, was wrecked there in 1609, and the archipelago was officially added to the company's territory in 1612, then managed by a spin-off, the
Somers Isles Company, until 1684, but maintained close links with Virginia and
Carolina Colony (which had subsequently been settled from Bermuda under
William Sayle in 1670). The British Government originally grouped Bermuda with North America (the archipelago is approximately east-southeast of
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina (with
Cape Point on
Hatteras Island being the nearest landfall); south of
Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia; northeast of
Cuba, and due north of the
British Virgin Islands. Although
Bermudians, with close ties of blood and trade to the southern continental American colonies (especially Virginia and South Carolina), tended towards the rebels early in the
American Revolutionary War /
American War of Independence (1775–1783), the control of the adjacent and surrounding
Atlantic Ocean by the British
Royal Navy meant there was no likelihood of the colony joining the rebellion. Although the rebels were supplied with ships and gunpowder by the Bermudians, Bermudian privateers soon turned aggressively on rebel shipping. After the acknowledgement by the British Government of the independence of the former
thirteen rebellious continental colonies in the negotiated
Treaty of Paris of 1783, finally recognising the independence of the new
United States of America which it originally declared on July 4, 1776. Bermuda was grouped regionally by the British Government with
The Maritimes and
Newfoundland and Labrador provinces of modern eastern
Canada, and, more widely, with British North America. Following the world-wide war, the
Royal Navy spent a dozen years of peace-time charting the barrier reef around Bermuda to discover the channel that enabled access to the northern lagoon, the
Great Sound, and
Hamilton Harbour. Once this had been located, a base was established (initially at
St. George's before the construction of the
Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda) in 1794, when Vice-Admiral
Sir George Murray, Commander-in-Chief of the new
River St. Lawrence and Coast of America and North America and West Indies Station, set up the first
Admiralty House, Bermuda, at Rose Hill, St. George's. In 1813, the area of command became the
North America Station again, with the West Indies falling under the
Jamaica Station, and in 1816 it was renamed the
North America and Lakes of Canada Station. The headquarters was initially in Bermuda during the winter and Halifax during the summer (both of which were designated as
Imperial fortresses, along with
Gibraltar and
Malta), but Bermuda, became the year-round headquarters of the Station in 1821, when the area of command became the
North America and West Indies Station. The
Royal Naval Dockyard, Halifax, was finally transferred to the Government of the
Dominion of Canada in 1907. Before 1784, the
Bermuda Garrison had been placed under the military Commander-in-Chief America in New York during the American War of Independence. A small regular infantry garrison had existed from 1701 to 1768, alongside the militia, and part of the Royal Garrison Battalion had been stationed there in 1778 but that battalion was disbanded in Bermuda in 1784. The regular military garrison was re-established at Bermuda in 1794 by part of the British Army's
47th Regiment of Foot and the Board of Ordnance also stationed an invalid company of the
Royal Artillery there soon after. The Bermuda garrison was to be part of the Nova Scotia Command until 1869 (in 1815, Lieutenant-General Sir
George Prevost was ''Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over the Provinces of Upper-Canada, Lower-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty's Forces in the said Provinces of Lower Canada and Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia and New-Brunswick, and their several Dependencies, and in the islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, Cape Breton and the Bermudas, &c. &c. &c.
Beneath Prevost, the staff of the British Army in the Provinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Islands of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda'' were under the Command of Lieutenant-General Sir
John Coape Sherbrooke. Below Sherbrooke, the Bermuda Garrison was under the immediate control of the
lieutenant-governor of Bermuda, Major General George Horsford).), and was expanded greatly during the 19th century, both to defend the colony as a naval base and to launch amphibious operations against the Atlantic coast of the United States in any war that should transpire. The
Royal Navy,
British Army,
Royal Marines, and
Colonial Marines forces based in Bermuda carried out actions of this sort during the subsequent American / Canadian
War of 1812 (1812–1815), the
North American phase of the larger
Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), elsewhere in
Europe and the world, versus
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), of
France. When the Royal Navy's blockade of the
Atlantic seaboard of the United States was orchestrated from Bermuda (In the
New England region, where support for the United States Government's war against Britain was low and from which Britain continued to purchase and receive grain to feed its army engaged in the
Peninsular War in
Spain and
Portugal, was at first excluded from this blockade). In 1813, Lieutenant-Colonel, Sir
Thomas Sydney Beckwith arrived in Bermuda to command an expeditionary force tasked with raiding the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States, specifically in the region of the
Chesapeake Bay and surrounding coasts of
Maryland and
Virginia. The force was to be composed of the infantry battalion then on garrison duty in Bermuda, the
102nd Regiment of Foot (with its Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel
Charles James Napier as Second-in-Command) forming one brigade with Royal Marines and a unit recruited from French prisoners-of-war, which was under Lt. Col. Napier's command, and another brigade formed under Lieutenant-Colonel Williams of the Royal Marines. The force took part in the
Battle of Craney Island on 22 June 1813. The most famous action carried out during the war by forces from Bermuda was the
Chesapeake Campaign of 1813 and later 1814, including the
Battle of Bladensburg northeast outside
Washington, D.C. with the subsequent
Burning of Washington in August 1814, retribution for the "wanton destruction of private property along the north shores of Lake Erie" by American forces under Col. John Campbell in May 1814, the most notable being the
Raid on Port Dover to draw United States forces away from the Canadian border. In 1828, His Excellency
George, Earl of Dalhousie, (Baron Dalhousie, of Dalhousie Castle,) Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Military Order of the Bath was ''Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over the Provinces of Lower-Canada, Upper-Canada, Nova-Scotia, and New-Brunswick, and their several dependencies, Vice-Admiral of the same, Lieutenant-General and Commander of all His Majesty's Forces in the said Provinces, and their several dependencies, and in the Islands of Newfoundland, Prince Edward, and Bermuda, &c. &c c. &c.
Beneath Dalhousie, the Provinces of Nova-Scotia, New-Brunswick, and their Dependencies, including the Island of Newfoundland, Cape Breton, Prince Edward and Bermuda'' were under the Command of His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir James Kempt GCB, GCH. The
established Church of England in Bermuda (since 1978, titled the
Anglican Church of Bermuda) and Newfoundland was attached to the
See of Nova Scotia from 1825 to 1839 and from 1787 to 1839, respectively. From 1839, the island of Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador, as well as Bermuda, became parts of the
Diocese of Newfoundland and Bermuda, with the shared Bishop (
Aubrey George Spencer being the first) alternating his residence between the two colonies. A separate Bermuda Synod was incorporated in 1879, but continued to share its Bishop with Newfoundland until 1919, when the separate position of
Bishop of Bermuda was created (in 1949, on Newfoundland becoming a province of Canada, the Diocese of Newfoundland became part of the
Anglican Church of Canada; the Church of England in Bermuda, which was re-titled the
Anglican Church of Bermuda in 1978, is today one of six
extra-provincial Anglican churches within the Church of England overseen by the
Archbishop of Canterbury in
Canterbury, England). Other denominations also at one time included Bermuda with Nova Scotia or Canada. Following the separation of the
Church of England from the
Roman Catholic Church in the
16th century of the
English Reformation period,
Catholic worship was restricted in England (subsequently
Britain) and its colonies, including Bermuda, until the
Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791, and operated thereafter under restrictions until
Catholic emancipation relief bills in the
19th and
20th century. Once Roman Catholic worship was allowed and reestablished, Bermuda formed part of the
Archdiocese of Halifax, Nova Scotia, until 1953, when it was separated to become the
Apostolic Prefecture of Bermuda Islands. The congregation of the first
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Bermuda (St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church, erected in 1885 in
Hamilton Parish) had previously been part of the
British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada.
New France (Nouvelle-France) The
Kingdom of Great Britain acquired most of
Acadia or Acadie, Nouvelle-France, in connection with the
Queen Anne's War of 1702–1713, and subsequent lands later, after the
Seven Years' War /
French and Indian War (1753/1756-1763). These territories would become the future provinces of
Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, and
Prince Edward Island, as well as parts of
Quebec in the modern
Dominion of Canada and additional territories that would eventually form part of the old
Massachusetts Bay Colony, later after 1776 as the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and later separated to form the
State of Maine in 1820, in the
United States. Britain acquired much of the remainder of
Canada (New France) and the eastern half of
Louisiana, including West Florida, from the
Kingdom of France, and
East Florida from the
Kingdom of Spain, by the earlier 1763
Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the
Seven Years' War (in
Europe) /
French and Indian War (in
North America). Spain had not taken possession of any of
Spanish Louisiana, which had been ceded to it under the earlier secret
Treaty of Fontainebleau of 1762, from France of
French Louisiana until seven years later in 1769. By the terms of the later
Treaty of Paris (1783), the United States acquired the southern and western portions of the former Royal French colony in the interior of the North American continent of
New France / (later
Quebec), south of the
Great Lakes to the
Ohio River and west to the
Mississippi River. At the same time that Spain gained along the
Gulf of Mexico coastline of
West Florida (western panhandle of Florida) and regained again
East Florida (of the Florida peninsula), forming
Spanish Florida until its 1813 / 1819 cession to the adjacent United States. on the North American continent. Nova Scotia was split into modern-day
Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick in 1784. The part of Quebec retained after 1783 was split into the primarily French-speaking Province of
Lower Canada (future
Quebec) and the primarily English-speaking Province of
Upper Canada (future
Ontario) in 1791. Later the two provinces north of the
Great Lakes of the
British Empire were combined in 1841 as the
Province of Canada (also known as the United Provinces of Canada or the United Canada). This lasted a quarter-century until 1867 and the passage of the
British North America Act by the
British Parliament in
London, with the then establishment of the modern
Dominion of Canada. After the
War of 1812 (1812–1815), the
Treaty of 1818 established the east/west
49th parallel, north of
latitude as the United States–British North America international border, extending from Rupert's Land (north of the Great Lakes) further west to the edge of the
Rocky Mountains. Then 28 years later, in the subsequent 1846 treaty, Britain and the United States split the jointly-administered
Oregon Country lands of the
Pacific Northwest region between the Americans and the British, extending the 49th parallel line further west to the
Puget Sound. The United States was assigned lands south of the 49th parallel, but Britain retained all of the off-shore of the
West Coast of
Vancouver Island (including a small portion of the southern tip of Vancouver Island south of the 49th parallel). After threats and squabbles over rich timber lands, the boundary between
Maine and
Nova Scotia was clarified by the
Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842, negotiated by
Daniel Webster and
Lord Ashburton.
The Canadas were united into the
Province of Canada in 1841. On 1 July 1867, the Dominion of Canada was created by the
British North America Act, 1867. The
confederation process brought together the provinces of Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The former Province of Canada was split back into its two parts, with
Canada East (Lower Canada) being renamed
Quebec, and
Canada West (Upper Canada) renamed
Ontario. Following confederation in 1867, the British Army withdrew from Canada in 1871, handing military defence over to the
Canadian Militia. With the consequent abolition of the British Army's Nova Scotia Command, and the office of its
Commander-in-Chief for British North America, the still-growing Bermuda Garrison was elevated to a separate.
Bermuda Command Newfoundland, Rupert's Land, and other territories of British North America The
Colony of Newfoundland, like Bermuda, was not included in the confederation that unified the other British North American colonies to form the Dominion of Canada in 1867. In 1870,
Rupert's Land, which consisted of territories of the
Hudson's Bay Company, was annexed to Canada as the
North-West Territories (NWT) and the new province of
Manitoba.
British Columbia, the British colony on the west coast north of the
49th parallel, including all of
Vancouver Island, joined as Canada's sixth province in 1871, and Prince Edward Island joined as the seventh in 1873. The boundary of British Columbia with
Washington Territory was settled by arbitration in 1872, and with
Alaska by arbitration in 1903. The
Arctic Archipelago was ceded by Britain to Canada in 1880 and added to the North-West Territories. Later on, large sections of the NWT were split off as new territories (the
Yukon Territory in 1898 and
Nunavut in 1999), or provinces (
Alberta and
Saskatchewan, both in 1905), or were added to existing provinces (Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec, in stages ending in 1912). In 1907,
Newfoundland became the
Dominion of Newfoundland, leaving Bermuda as the sole remaining colony in British North America. British North America ceased to exist as an administrative region of the British Empire, with all remaining British colonies in the Western Hemisphere, from Bermuda to the
Falkland Islands grouped in the "West Indian Division" of the "Crown Colonies Department" of the Colonial Office. In 1934, Newfoundland returned to British administration under the
Commission of Government. Bermuda was increasingly perceived by the British Government as in, or at least grouped for convenience with, the British West Indies. The last official administrative link to the Maritimes was through the established church. In 1879 the Synod of the Church of England in Bermuda was formed and a Diocese of Bermuda became separate from the Diocese of Newfoundland, but continued to be grouped under the
Bishop of Newfoundland and Bermuda until 1919, when Newfoundland and Bermuda each received its own bishop. ==British North America colonies==